What Does It Take for a Superintendent to Lead Place-Based Transformation?

Abstract

Chiefs for Change is a national, nonpartisan organization that convenes and supports a selective network of district and statewide education superintendents in public K-12 school systems. The support for the role of the superintendency, while always emphasizing effective operational and instructional leadership, increasingly requires superintendents to build the political and civic capacity to lead beyond the school walls and outside of the school day. In response to this growing need, Chiefs for Change established a renewed strategic direction: reimagining public education to ensure all students have access to social and economic mobility by enabling the conditions for success from cradle to career. To achieve this mission, superintendents must be effective civic and place-based leaders: possessing and utilizing the knowledge, skills and dispositions necessary to effect and sustain durable cross-sector collaboration between the school system, local government, private philanthropy and community-based organizations. This capstone chronicles the development of the strategy, design and preliminary execution of the civic and place-based programming at Chiefs for Change. Situated among a broader array of program offerings, the work of this strategic project focuses on the civic leadership continuum: from the knowledge, skills and dispositions needed to successfully navigate their roles to the technical assistance needed to unlock deeper support in coordinating resources across a community. Frameworks from Mark Moore’s Strategic Triangle, the Collaborative on Political Leadership in the Superintendency and the Social Genome Project undergird the knowledge base, as Chiefs for Change expands its membership, revamps its leadership development programming and explores new organizational partnerships to meet the growing needs of its network members who lead school systems across the country. The analysis section outlines the preconditions for superintendents readiness, elicits implications for continued support, offers considerations for the organization and the sector at-large and suggests broad recommendations for ongoing partnerships between school systems, government and community-based organizations. Finally, the conclusion foreshadows an analytical roadmap for the future of place-based and civic leadership in the superintendency, suggest next steps along the programmatic timeline and recommends additional impact metrics for Chiefs for Change.